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You now have to be a millionaire to buy a family home in London

Lianna Brinded   

You now have to be a millionaire to buy a family home in London
Finance3 min read

The CuatroTorres residential building complex is demolished during a controlled implosion, in the city of Medellin September 23, 2014. Colombian authorities imploded the Medellin apartment building that partially collapsed almost a year ago, killing 11 people.

REUTERS/Fredy Builes

House prices are blowing up.

Forget about the pain of being a first time buyer trying to get on the London property ladder - if you've got kids, chances are you'll have to move out of the capital to buy a place remotely big enough.

Or just rent forever.

MoveHub, a directory for people moving abroad, crunched the numbers and found that buying a property capable of housing a family of four in London is now around £1.01 million ($1.53 million).

This is more than triple the average UK cost for a family home of £307,824 ($467,118).

Moving out to Cambridge, which is around 1 to 1.5 hours away on the train, in order to commute into London halves the price of a family home when compared to the capital. But with Cambridge costing £448,649 ($680,975) on average for a home large enough for a family of four, combined with commuting costs, it's not exactly "cheap."

Brighton, which is by the sea and takes around 1 hour to get into London, comes in as the third most expensive place in Britain to buy a family home at £418,901 ($635,725). Oxford, another commuter town, comes in at £411,337 ($624,190) and is above the national average.

expesnivehouseprices

MoveHub

Unsurprisingly, the cheapest places to buy a family home are nowhere near London.

Belfast in Northern Ireland is the cheapest place to buy a family home in the UK at £139,883 ($212,296) while Glasgow in Scotland comes in at £156,596 ($237,661).

MoveHub's data falls in line with how crazy London's housing market is at the moment.

In November, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said in its RICS Residential Survey for October that UK house prices are expected to rise by 4.5% per annum over the next five years (a cumulative increase of around 25%). The chief economist at RICS said that property will become increasingly "unaffordable" during this time.

Price comparison website Gocompare.com revealed in the same month that first-time buyers need a minimum salary of £140,000 ($213,047) to even get on the ladder.

And because it's so difficult to buy a property, a YouGov poll commissioned by estate agents Knight Frank, showed that a third of Londoners are now prepared to spend 50% of their salary on rent.

The median average salary in the capital is just £30,338 ($45,843). This equates to around £1,965 ($2,961) per month.

So imagine just leaving £982.50 for bills, commuting, debts, food, and other livings expenses.

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